NEW DELHI: Indian bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth (pictured) and 38 others were charged yesterday over a spot-fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League that has rocked the sport, a prosecutor said.
Indian prosecutors filed charges in a New Delhi court against the 39 alleging links to organised crime during this year’s edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 competition.
“The players and others have also been charged with criminal conspiracy, cheating and dishonesty,” special public prosecutor Rajesh Mohan said.
Two of Sreesanth’s team-mates from the Rajasthan Royals franchise, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, were also charged along with bookmakers and underworld figures.
They were charged under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, Mohan said.
The three players were arrested in May along with scores of bookies as part of a police investigation into the spot-fixing scandal, which has caused outrage among fans in the cricket-mad nation.
India’s cricket officials launched their own investigation into a separate betting scandal in the IPL, which prompted the country’s cricket chief N. Srinivasan to step aside last month pending the outcome of the probe.
In a further twist to the scandal, the Bombay High Court yesterday ruled that the probe itself had been illegal, throwing into question the return of Srinivasan.
He stepped aside temporarily as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) after his son-in-law was arrested, and later released on bail, over alleged links to illegal bookmakers.
Son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan is one of the owners of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, a team bought by Srinivasan’s India Cements conglomerate when the league was launched in 2008.
The probe’s report, leaked to the media found no wrongdoing by senior cricket officials or IPL owners over the scandal, apparently paving the way then for Srinivasan’s return. AFP
